This invention relates in general to the field of planning, and more particularly to a system and method for generating dependent data.
It is often desirable within a business or other planning environment to generate information regarding demand, available supply, selling price, or other data concerning a product or other item. Data for products may often be dependent in some manner on data for other hierarchically related products. For example, demand for a product with multiple components or options may drive the demand for a particular one of those components or options. It may also be desirable, for example, to relate demand for one or more products to the demand for one or more other products even though the products are not hierarchically related. For example, demand for one component of a product may drive the demand for another component of the product even when the components are not hierarchically related.
As the relationships between products, component, and options proliferate, and as data for these products, components, and options increases in complexity, generating dependent forecasts or other dependent data relatively quickly, efficiently, and reliably becomes increasingly important. However, previous techniques for generating dependent data are deficient for many multi-dimensional applications because such techniques may often involve the complicated manipulation of data measures associated with non-hierarchically related products, resulting in additional delays and associated business costs. Database size requirements, system maintenance concerns, and complexity from the perspective of a user often increase with the number of data measures and the complexity of the relationships between the products associated with these data measures. These deficiencies are particularly troublesome when dependent data to be generated concerns hierarchically unrelated members in a multi-dimensional environment. Furthermore, these and other problems make updating, modifying, and internally synchronizing the dependent data across an enterprise relatively difficult and time consuming even if it is generated substantially accurately. Moreover, since timeliness is often sacrificed as a result of these difficulties, dependent data generated for such hierarchically unrelated members using previous techniques may be too unreliable for the needs of many users. These and other disadvantages make previous techniques for generating dependent data inadequate for many purposes.
According to the present invention, disadvantages and problems associated with systems and methods for generating dependent data have been substantially reduced or eliminated.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a system for generating dependent data includes a database having at least a first dimension. The database contains a mapping comprising a source member in the first dimension and a target member in the first dimension. The database also contains an attach rate that relates independent data associated with the source member to dependent data associated with the target member. A server coupled to the database accesses the mapping and applies the attach rate to the independent data for the source member to generate the dependent data for the target member. In a particular embodiment, the first dimension is a product dimension, the database contains members in the geography and time dimensions, and the attach rate relates the independent data to the dependent data given the members in the geography and time dimensions.
The system and method of the present invention provide a number of important technical advantages. Unlike previous techniques, the system and method of the present invention generate dependent data for target members relatively quickly, efficiently, and reliably, decreasing delays and reducing unnecessary business costs. These benefits are particularly apparent when the dependent data to be generated concerns hierarchically unrelated source and target members, which mappings and corresponding attach rates readily accommodate. Furthermore, the system and method of the present invention reduce the need for human intervention and allow dependent data to be readily updated, modified, and internally synchronized across an enterprise. In addition, the attach rates accommodate stochastic or other time dependent data, which allows dependent data to be generated using the present invention when other techniques would be deficient. Other important technical advantages are apparent to those skilled in the art from the following figures, description, and claims.